A person's failure to change a password to an electronic signing system does not amount to representational conduct sufficient to establish ostensible authority binding that person to documents signed electronically without their knowledge. For ratification, a principal cannot be said to have shut their eyes to the obvious merely because an electronic system listed a 'credit application' without reference to a personal guarantee. Trade creditors relying on electronic signatures bear the risk that the signature may have been applied without authority, absent representational conduct by the purported signatory. The question whether the unauthorised placement of a genuine electronic signature on a document amounts to forgery at common law was left open.
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